Wednesday, May 16, 2007

16th May: GS Update

Full day of gaming today! Got a few new games off of my shelf, and also spent some MS Points.

Sonic the Hedgehog to start. I've always been a big fan of the retro 2D sidescrolling Sonic games, and not one 3D encounter has really tickled my fancy. This 360 version looks ok enough. I'd heard a lot of problems with the camera, but I havent had any problems yet. There is the odd circumstance where Sonic flies past the camera too fast, but nothing too serious. Gameplay wise, the only element they have added since the Dreamcast version is that missions are based in cities, and you have to talk to people to find them, then buy upgrades from rings you get during the stages. While a nice addition, it isn't quintessential Sonic. As for the acheivements, they seem either impossible, or a solid 10 hrs on each to get them. No big achievements for progressing through the storyline. The game was clearly rushed, even the instruction manual explains features which aren't in the game. Bad play Sega. Bad play.

Full Auto on the other hand, was a game I'd heard nothing but positive things about. And they weren't wrong! I had a Burnout on the PS2, and this is what essentially Full Auto is. Race with weapons on your car, trying to do as much damage as possible without getting hit, and trying to come in first. Each race takes around 5 mintues, and there are plenty of different races and tracks to keep one occupied. Kudos. Achievements are progressive too - total number of kills, damage, and for completing certain races. I'm going to like Full Auto from day one (until I have to get SA rank on each race... =D )!

My affair with Bionicle Heroes is not a good one. When I got it, I tried to get all the achievements in one day. I was 8 hours in on this Sunday, about two levels from the final boss. The auto save feature (usually always a lifeline) kicked out a horrible error message - "Unable to save game". Shit. This has happened to me and many, many others online. To some, it has happened 4+ times. I was 76% of the game complete, and 860GS in. The downside is that to get the last 140, I'd need to play these 8 hours again. So this time, rather than doing it all at once, I'm doing it a level at a time. So I did one level today.

Catan again. This game is great! Though the achievements I have left are long ones. Today I got the one for 100 Victory Points total.


I bought Galaga today with 400 MS points. Very easy to get all the achievements - about an hour. Its typical arcade Galaga, I really need not say much more. If the developers had not added the 'Restart from level x' function in the start menu, then this game would be a lot harder!

NHL 2k7 - I bought this at the time because acheive360points forums said it was fairly easy, and I found it cheap. Well for a hockey game, its quite good. Controls are very responsive and there are plenty of options to choose and edit. Achievements seem straight forward, and just need a serious sit down over a few hours to get them all. The only flaw I could notice was the non-user friendliness of the menu interface. Sometimes it was just too annoying, unlike the Madden menu interface.

Crackdown is always a great game. I purchased the 800 MS add-on pack for this today. The new add-ons seem a great addition, but given that I've done the major storyline, they got kinda dull, fast. The new achievements are nothing to sniff at either - most of them require a fair few hours focus on each to get them. Shame that the H3Beta isnt up yet.

I bought MUA a while ago when they announced the extra achievements. It was still rather expensive, so I got it second hand. Its a combination of hack and slash, with a little of problem solving. Not a combination I like I'm afraid. I stuck it in, played a few minutes, then took it out.

Robotron is a hard game. No extra GS for me today from it.



I played the Contra demo a while back - it seemed kinda difficult, and not my sort of game. Luckily, a friend has it tied to his account, and I can play when he is signed in. On my third game, I was getting a lot better - I got the achievement for not dying in the first round. I was well chuffed with that. I expect the 100k co-op, and the co-op completion achievements to be very hard. Luckily I see a couple of friends on my list have all 200, so I'll probably call on them for those achievements in the future.

CoD3 is a game all my friends have, and I got mine out of the shrink wrap today. Not a lot to say - I dont like FPS without a keyboard and mouse, and CoD3 is a bugger to control. I've come to the same conclusion as many reviews - CoD3 is CoD2 with nicer graphics and more missions. CoD3 has less checkpoints, which is annoying, but the achievements are more spread out than CoD2 - some are for easy things, others are very hard to get. In a way, that makes it better =D

Overall quite a good day - 1 XBLA games complete, and 6 new games tested. Still, shame about H3Beta.

My GS changed thusly: 23930 -> 24835

Sonic The Hedgehog: 0 -> 0
Full Auto: 0 -> 225
Bionicle Heroes: 880 -> 880
Catan: 70 -> 90
Galaga: 0 -> 200
NHL 2k7: 0 -> 235
Crackdown: 670 -> 740
Marvel Ultimate Alliance: 80 -> 80
Robotron: 2084: 50 -> 50
Contra: 0 -> 50
Call of Duty 3: 0 -> 105

Retail complete: 14/80 (15 w/Oblivion to 1000)
XBLA complete: 6/19

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